On the one hand, I love that cartoons, from Looney Tunes to modern Disney, have played a role in giving kids exposure to classical music.
On the other, every time my conductor talks about Béla Bartók, all I can think about is this.
Imagine this lil' guy frantically scribbling a concerto.
12 years ago, I wrote Lifehacker's guidelines on science reporting. It's still up, here:
lifehacker.com/lifehackers-...
And apparently prestige publications still haven't gotten the memo. (Relevant: Bullet no. 2 under "common science reporting pitfalls.")
I was part of the team that wrote them for Science News and yeah, it was...nervewracking.
Still proud we got it done.
Yes, this person is late career and most likely someone we've heard of.
Online writing for NYT right now is only $1/word, which is average for most of the science outlets I write for.
Me: Wakes up feeling like I've been hit by a train because daylight savings.
A newsletter: Here's how to ease in to daylight savings with science!
Me: clicks hopefully.
Newsletter: You're going to want to start the week before the clocks change...
Me:
Also half these orders are literally ON the menu at the coffee shop! Like "Iced Matcha Oat Latte" is 100% on the menu list at Starbucks, it's not even weird or customized.
You know sometimes history feels really long, and sometimes it feels unbearably squished.
I recently learned that Joan of Arc faced cannon fire. She USED cannons. She was pretty good with artillery!
We think of her as peak Middle Ages. She's depicted wearing armor (and she did), and yet!
Honestly Bach does. He composed so many hymns for EVERYONE to sing, and that means for your average adult soprano and alto. His pieces are just...COMFORTABLE.
In my experience Russian composers also tend to do well in this regard, I'm not sure if they had women in their choirs early.
Sigh. it's also not even surprising, given what we know about anorexia and bulimia and osteoporosis!
GLP-1s are the chemical version of extreme food restriction...and everything that comes with it.
SOMEONE programmed that. I believe this firmly.
Because one of our smoke detectors went in the middle of the night the other day.
And thing is they always do. ALWAYS in the night!
And if they went randomly, then statistically they must go during the day half the time! AND YET.
I would say another 25% of adulthood is hunting down which thing in your house is beeping.
good work! The first one is the hardest
Where did you put it?
Ugh. Also this POOR AUTHOR, her name being dragged through the mud now for a scam she's got nothing to do with!
UGH that sucks. Yeah I'm usually late to the game on these scams, they trickle down to the smallest writers last.
I WONDERED if this was a "thing"! That's why I posted about it, I suspected it was.
I'm so sorry.
Anyway if Ottessa Moshfegh ACTUALLY wants to be friends I'd be super hype. My Year of Rest and Relaxation was an incredible piece of writing that I still think about.
But I'm really quite sure she doesn't know I exist.
Scams like these prey on the very things that make us writers, the desire to communicate and be seen by other people.
And they prey on things that make us human, the desire to be Someone.
Whoever came up with this scam has a hole where their kindness should be.
And this is part of what makes it so cruel.
All we want is for someone to read our books. To think about them, to engage with our ideas and say they wanted to wrestle with them, too.
And it's VERY cool to have a famous writer give you the time of day, to know someone you admire read your book.
But Bee you say how do you know it's a scam?
1. The email was weird: author dot name DOT their initials at gmail!?
2. The text was highly formal, I ran it through a checker, 100% AI generated. No self-respecting writer would do that.
3. This author is outside of my genre, and famous.
This is a new one.
We authors for a while were plagued with scams disguised as book clubs. "Hi we picked your book for our book club" followed by "we need a lot of money."
Today: I got an email purportedly from another AUTHOR.
It's definitely a scam. These are so painfully cruel.
Put this in my veins.
Do your loaches love loafing?
If it helps we just did the Bach Magnificat, and I did Et Exsultavit. :)
The image in your profile made me spit my coffee I'm DYING 😂 "With trashy vibrato"
My entire throat just TWINGED even reading that.
the obsession with the F5G5 placement I just.
YUP.
And i also think some of it is some composers trained as instrumentalists, and see the voice only as its range. Like sopranos are violins! Boom done!
No no no my dears. Never.
I know several people who have transitioned and still sing, in the new range or their previous one (I know a femme baritone for example, she's just...god it's gorgeous I could listen to her ALL DAY), and I hope you can find that for yourself! I hope it can give you joy, and not dysphoria.
So the next time you hear an adult choir sing, say, Handel. And it doesn't sound like you think it should, based on recordings, or whatever...
...ask yourself if it's because the trebles don't sound like little boys.
And these composers exist NOW!
I work with one. I am told constantly, no no a pure, young tone! A "Dolly-like" sweetness!
You wanna compose for little boys go be composer in residence for them.
